By Elizabeth Soh |
Singapore Showbiz – 31 minutes ago
Dr
Jiajia and Big Brother (Yahoo! Photos/ Elizabeth
Soh)
They are only six and 12, but together, Chua Jin Sen and Chua
Jin Chou have amassed a following of over 16,000 fans on Facebook and
10,000 subscribers on their YouTube channel.
Better known as Dr Jiajia and Big Brother, these two boys are
the stars of a series of "Singlish" videos that have gone viral
here, amassing over 3.6 million views for their hilarious take on
Singapore's unofficial national language.
Their videos have attracted so much attention that Dr Jiajia's
crinkly-eyed smiling face has now become synonymous with the
Dyslexia
Association of Singapore (DAS), and his signature "Kee
Chiew!" (Raise your hand) move has become a talking point on
forums and on the streets here.
Now, Dr Jiajia is on his way to becoming a bona fide local movie
star.
Speaking to Yahoo! Singapore from their home in the East of
Singapore yesterday, Dr Jiajia's parents revealed that their son
will be acting in an upcoming local movie as the cheeky son of a
taxi-driver "Ah Beng", popular slang for Singapore-Chinese
ruffian.
"We decided to allow Jiajia to participate in this movie because
they were willing to accomodate his schoolwork schedule and they
were also very sincere in their approach." said Jiajia's home-maker
mother, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Chua.
At the moment, a confidentiality agreement prevents his parents
from disclosing the name of the company he will be working with but
Mr Chua was able to say that it was "not Jack Neo", but a smaller
production company.
The family has also been approached by Member of Parliament Tin
Pei Ling, management companies, musical production units, and the
team behind this year's National Day Parade.
In person, Dr Jiajia and Big Brother are tinier than this
reporter imagined them to be, but despite the interview being late
in the evening, were balls of energy, twisting their faces into all
manner of expressions and jumping in with candid replies to
questions, much to their parents' amused exasperation.
Mr and Mrs Chua have two other younger daughters who make
occasional guest appearances in the videos, which are directed,
scripted, and edited by Mr Chua.
So how has this sudden rise to fame affected the close-knit
Buddhist and vegetarian family and how are they dealing with
it?
On getting started ..
"Funnily, it started with us filming a video for my school
project on speaking good english two years ago... we decided to
make one on Singlish and uploaded it, it got quite a lot of hits,
and then we filmed Singlish Minister, and.. boom!" said
Big Brother, waving his hands.
"These videos help them develop their innovation and creativity,
something we feel the education system lacks. Its training they
will never get in school." said their father, who works in the IT
industry.
Each video is scripted by Mr Chua and Big Brother, and takes
them only about an hour to film in their living room at home.
Their "Singlish Minister" (below), is their most popular video
to date, chalking up almost 600,000 hits since it was uploaded in
March. It rode on the wave of frustrations from the SMRT
train breakdowns, and was shared thousands of times on
Facebook.
On fans and detractors ...
Mrs Chua says that at least 95 per cent of the feedback they get
are positive and encouraging, but they have also received a fair
share of criticism.
"They say things like, how can you teach your kids to speak
Singlish, what kind of parents are you?" said Big Brother, "They
say that Singlish is the reason why we are not doing well in
school."
"I guess they don't know that we speak mostly Mandarin at home,
Singlish is just for the videos. Also, Big Brother does pretty well
in school. For Jiajia, he is dyslexic, and he is already doing very
well considering." said Mrs Chua.
She added that when Jiajia received his last report card, he
called back saying he had "got two wrong only" and it turned out
that he had failed two out of his three subjects, but they were
still very happy.
"He passed his Mandarin, and that's already very encouraging. He
has abacus, taekwondo, piano, reading lessons, he already works so
hard, how can we push him more?" said Mr Chua, "So we don't let it
affect us."
Most of the time, however, they get comments from fans saying
that their videos have brightened their days, helped them cope with
stress and kill their Monday blues.
Big
Brother and Dr Jiajia at home (Yahoo! Photos/ Elizabeth
Soh)
Has fame changed them?
"They say I cannot scold them in public anymore." joked Mrs
Chua, who added that the pair get recognised so often by neighbours
and strangers that they cannot discipline the active boys if they
misbehave.
On their recent trip to Taipei, Taiwan, they were recognised by
5 different groups of Singaporean tourists in Taoyuan airport, who
came up to ask to take a photo with them.
"They will exclaim, hey, its Dr Jiajia! Or, our neighbours will
say, is that the newspaper boy." said Big Brother.
Big Brother also prefers to leave the cheeky grins and antics to
his younger sibling, as he doesn't want to look foolish in front of
his friends.
As for Jiajia, his parents say he remains very much just a
little boy with an extremely over-active imagination and who loves
eating vegetarian hot dogs.
In his spare time, he plays with his Lego bricks or has sword
fights, talking to himself and pretending to be a superhero
fighting invisible monsters with his younger sister, affectionately
nicknamed "Hello Kitty".
Their parents also keep them grounded by getting them involved
in charity work. All of their red packet money from Chinese New
Year every year goes to supporting a Mongolian child that they
decided to sponsor a year ago.
They are also collaborating with DAS to raise funds through the
sale of a red National Day Parade shirt with seven designs. Click
here to find out more.
What do they want to be when they grow up?
When asked who was his idol by his mother, Jiajia immediately
patted her hand and said "You, mummy!" but later grabbed his elder
brother and said in Mandarin "Of course, my Kor kor,
lah!"
In turn, Big Brother considers his father to be his role
model.
And what does Jiajia want to be when he grows up?
"I want to be a doctor, and then, a PM (Prime Minister)!" he
said
But wouldn't that be a lot of work and stress?
"Oh, I mean MP (Member of Parliament)!!" he quips back.
Why?
"Because I want to kee chiew!!"
